


this time it’s love, my foolish heart

by decideophobia



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, in this house we hack canon to pieces and feed it to the pigs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-08 00:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19095940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decideophobia/pseuds/decideophobia
Summary: He shouldn’t be teasing. Quentin getting up at ass o’clock so he could bake him a surprise birthday cake when he usually painstakingly avoids all kitchen things that don’t involve him being slathered up in something for Eliot to lick off of him is such an achingly sweet sentiment, it actually gives Eliot cavities. If he’s being honest, he wouldn’t even give two shits if the cake was inedible; he still feels like someone shot him up with actual bottled up lovey-dovey emotions so concentrated they gave him honest to god heart eyes.





	this time it’s love, my foolish heart

**Author's Note:**

> [portraitofemmy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/portraitofemmy) prompted over on tumblr “slow dancing in the kitchen to jazz music” and that's all i could come up with but i really wanted to write some fluff. so there.
> 
> title from the song [My Foolish Heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-vzGxp8388) by bill evans and tony bennett which i think also creates a nice backdrop in a theme sort of way, more or less. 
> 
> hope you enjoy!
> 
> this is horribly unbeta'd, sorry for the mess.

Eliot drowsily blinks awake in the dark, hands automatically searching for Quentin. His sleep-slow brain makes a feeble attempt at trying to provide an answer for why he woke up in the first place as his hands go in search for Quentin on their own accord. It’s when they don’t find him that Eliot lifts his head from the pillow. He squints, still sluggish, and pats across the mattress to make sure Q didn’t just roll to the far end.

A string of curses follows a sound of soft cluttering from somewhere in the apartment that has Eliot perk up, his brain springing into gear now. He rubs at his eyes as he gets up, quickly catching a glimpse at the bright red gleaming numbers on the clock on his night stand. It’s half past two in the morning. Why the fuck is Quentin rampaging in the apartment at two thirty in the fucking morning when he could be spooned by Eliot instead? _Especially_ when he could be spooned by Eliot instead.

Eliot gets up with minimal longsuffering groaning before he pads out of the bedroom to go investigate.

Q is puttering around the kitchen, humming under his breath to some slow tune playing in the background. Eliot takes in the utter mess as the last of the sleepy sluggishness is being shoved out of his brain by the sheer exasperation he feels at the sight before him. It’s like someone set loose a merry band of asshole cats in his kitchen—yes, _his_ kitchen—except it’s his kitchen-uncoordinated asshole Q who, for reasons unknown, decided to recreate a war zone at two thirty in the morning. 

“Q,” Eliot says, trying to keep his tone even. “What the everloving _fuck_ —”

Q startles so hard something goes clattering to the floor, spilling over the tiles. He whips around to stare at Eliot: wide-eyed, like a deer trapped in the headlights, and a faint flush creeping up his cheeks. Eliot gets momentarily sidetracked by the deliciousness of that particular look. 

“Fuck, El,” Quentin mutters. “Why are you up?”

Really.

Eliot doesn’t dignify it with an answer, raises his brows instead. Quentin purses his lips and lifts his chin a little; oh lord, he’s trying not to budge. There’s a patch of what Eliot supposes is flour over his right eyebrow and dusts along the line of his jaw. His hair looks like he’s been running his hands through it a lot and there’s a defensive little furrow between his eyebrows. Eliot tries not to get distracted by the fact that the Pillsbury Doughboy look does it for him.

“Why are you destroying my kitchen at this blasphemous hour?” he asks, prying his mind away from the descent into exploring all the things he could do to Quentin in an already messy kitchen. 

“I’m not— _your_ kitch—?” Q huffs but it’s half-assed at best, and really, it’s cute how he tries to contest the kitchen aspect when they both know that Q is usually just there to be decoratively pretty while Eliot is busy cooking. “Nothing,” Quentin finally settles on after his face goes through a series of complicated expressions, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Nothing what?” Eliot asks, biting down hard on the smile that threatens to steal itself across his face, just to be a shit, and more importantly, to see Q get adorably flustered.

Quentin throws his hands up as a frustrated noise slipping out of his mouth before he rubs at his eyes. “So I just—I wanted to—mmmmh.” He hums to himself, pressing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. Eliot walks over to him, gently touching his fingers to Q’s wrist.

“Quentin,” Eliot offers: a way out, an apology, an invitation, comfort. 

Q’s hands fall away from his eyes and he tips his head up, leaning back a little, to look at Eliot. There’s no anger or frustration on his face, nothing that actually makes Eliot worry any longer, and the tension that has started building up in his gut slowly dissipates.

A slow, sweet smile tugs at the corners of Q’s mouth, letting his eyes roam over Eliot’s face as if he was mapping it, careful and lingering. Eliot is frozen under his attention, always has been, always is: helpless when Q’s entire focus is only on him, and all Eliot can do is give himself over, sure and afraid at the same time. Quentin winds his arms around his waist pulling Eliot a little closer, runs the tips of his fingers along Eliot’s spine, and the force with which Eliot is hit by his emotions is terrifying, exhilarating, dizzying. 

“Happy birthday,” Q finally says. He stretches up a little, tilting his chin just so, and Eliot goes in, just like that, and kisses him. It’s sweet and chaste and completely innocent, and Eliot’s knees go weak. Q is still smiling at him when he pulls back, achingly affectionate.

There they are: these feelings, powerful and all-encompassing, and even after all this time, he’s utterly unprepared for the intensity they carry. They crash over Eliot in waves, unstoppable, inevitable, and sometimes—sometimes it’s still hard to let himself be swept up in them instead of running away.

“Oh, so the mess is my present?” he asks, raising his brows. Safe on known territory. 

Q stares at him, unimpressed. “Yes, you’re starting to get a little rusty with your telekinesis there. Wouldn’t want to lose your touch in your old age.”

“Yeah?” Eliot smirks as Q raises his brows in a clear challenge. “Last I checked my telekinesis worked perfectly fine. You certainly weren’t complaining.”

Q shrugs a little, the corners of his mouth turning down. “It was…adequate.”

Eliot is unable to stop his mouth from falling open at that, utterly indignant. Quentin is biting down on his bottom lip, looking inappropriately gleeful and sheepish, and Eliot wants to _eat him up_. 

“You’re so full of shit, Coldwater,” he says, and it sounds embarrassingly fond. 

Q simply hums at that, tipping up his face again in that way that means he wants a kiss, and who is Eliot to deny him anything. He’s long realized that he’s given himself over to Quentin, entirely and wholly, without ever having made a conscious decision about it. Yet, Quentin knows. Eliot never told him but he knows. It shows in the affectionately shit-eating grin he flashes Eliot right before their lips touch; it’s present in his hands as they slide up Eliot’s sides, sure and warm; it’s right there in the way he kisses Eliot, devastatingly tender, indescribable in the manner in which it scatters over Eliot’s skin, seeps in and settles deep, deep within him. 

It makes him feel light-headed, the fact that he gets to have this. It terrifies him how much he wants it.

Quentin pulls back, presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, then to the line of his jaw, his mouth quirked in a precious smile.

“Actually,” he says then, stepping away from the counter to reveal a cake. “I wanted to surprise you with this.”

Quentin comes to stand next to him while Eliot takes in the cake. It’s a poor, crooked thing with absolutely no artistry to it: probably one of the saddest things Eliot’s ever seen. Margo would bowl over laughing her tits off. 

Eliot loves it. Fuck, he loves it, and this cake goes against every aesthetic he has cultivated over the years, and Eliot loves it with a ferocity that almost startles him.

“It’s—you know, it’s not _pretty_ —and I didn’t wanna cheat and use magic—”

“It’s perfect,” Eliot interrupts, pulling Q close to his side. He curls his hand around the side of Quentin’s head, pressing a kiss to his temple. “You didn’t accidentally poison it, though, did you?”

“Oh, fuck you,” Q says with indignant vigour, shoving away from Eliot. “I never poisoned anything!”

“No,” Eliot concedes, tipping his head to the side. “But you did confuse flour and powdered sugar once.”

Quentin throws his hands up. “They’re both white powders!” 

_Oh_ , his sweet, wonderful, devastatingly culinary incompetent Q.

Eliot purses his lips in a poor attempt to hide his smile. “It’s a good thing we don’t have any cocaine lying around.”

Q rolls his entire head, really, it’s _delightful_. He crosses his arms in front of his chest, looking adorably sullen. “I tried it, it’s fine. I didn’t mix anything up this time.”

Eliot opens up his arms and Q comes, easy as that, without even hesitating, melting against Eliot’s chest like it’s all he could ever do. 

He shouldn’t be teasing. Quentin getting up at ass o’clock so he could bake him a surprise birthday cake when he usually painstakingly avoids all kitchen things that don’t involve him being slathered up in something for Eliot to lick off of him is such an achingly sweet sentiment, it actually gives Eliot cavities. If he’s being honest, he wouldn’t even give two shits if the cake was inedible; he still feels like someone shot him up with actual bottled up lovey-dovey emotions so concentrated they gave him honest to god heart eyes. 

“I love it,” Eliot says, buries his nose in Q’s hair.

Q huffs in protest, and Eliot hugs him tighter. “You haven’t even tried it yet.”

“I don’t care. You made it for me.”

“Oh.” Quentin stills with a soft little sound. “Okay.”

They stay like that for a moment, clinging to each other silently, while Eliot tries to keep his countenance. Q eventually wiggles out of the hug and squats down. Eliot has a brief moment of excitement of an entirely different kind—which he will under no circumstances admit to when he realizes that Quentin only got down to his knees to collect a scattered set of little birthday candles. If hard pressed, he’ll concede that he’s just mildly disappointed.

Quentin sticks the candles into the cake and tuts to light them up before turning to look at Eliot. Half his face is illuminated by the soft light by the tiny flames, catching in his eyes, and he’s too lovely to look at. 

“Happy birthday, El,” he says again, smiles his dimply little smile that sends Eliot reeling every time. 

Eliot looks away from Q to the crooked little birthday cake and wonders, not for the first time, how he ever got so lucky. It’s a question he can’t find an answer to, and if he starts overthinking it, it leads him down a path he doesn’t really want to explore. So instead of latching onto that particular thought Eliot blows out the candles.

“What’d you wish for?” Quentin asks, grabbing onto the hand Eliot holds out to him. 

Eliot pulls him flush against his chest, snakes his arms around Q’s waist. “Won’t come true if I tell you,” he answers, and bops the tip of Quentin’s nose.

Q mockingly scowls at him. “You expect that you won’t get that blowjob if you admit you wished for it?”

“Please, don’t you think I’d be a little more creative with my wish than a simple blowjob?” 

“Dare to do it in Margo’s bathroom and risk getting caught by her and have both our dicks chopped off for defiling her space?”

That—is actually a kind of thrilling suggestion. Eliot files it away for a later time to explore. 

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Coldwater,” Eliot says instead and watches, utterly delighted, as indignation plays out across Q’s face. “Stop projecting onto me.”

While Q groans and hides his face in Eliot’s collarbones, Eliot tuts to change the music, switching it something slower and sweeter. Gently, he curls his arms around Quentin, starts to sway them to the melody floating over their heads. Eliot tips his head down to lean his forehead against Q’s. Up close his eyes swallow Eliot whole.

“Thank you,” he says softly, sliding one hand up and down Q’s back before settling it on his lower back. 

Q leans his head back a little. “For messing up your kitchen?” he asks, teasing, with raised eyebrows.

Eliot should’ve seen this coming, really. He digs his fingers into Quentin’s sides in retaliation and laughs when Q squawks and tries to squirm away. 

“You suck,” Q says when Eliot lets up, with no venom at all, and winds his arms around Eliot’s shoulders.

“That I do excellently,” Eliot answers loftily. “And I know for a fact that you love it.”

Eliot spins them slowly as he watches Q’s faint flush disappearing beneath the neckline of his shirt. He relishes in the feeling of their bodies flush against each other: the warmth of Q seeping into his own skin, igniting sparks of something fiercely powerful that skitters down his vertebrae. 

Q is looking at him now, with a sort of soft scrutiny that almost makes Eliot want to hide his face in the crook Quentin’s neck. There’s the ghost of a smile at the corners of his mouth, enough to show off his dimples a little, enough to launch Eliot’s heart into his throat.

“I hope whatever you wished for comes true,” Q says quietly. He draws his thumb down the side of Eliot’s neck, caresses this skin behind his ear. Quentin gets up on his tiptoes and Eliot meets him automatically, unthinkingly, without hesitation, and the kiss lights a wholeass fireworks in his fucking stomach, and fuck—. 

_Fuck_. Eliot is irrevocably, hopelessly, helplessly gone on this awkward, adorable nerd who baked him a crooked birthday cake in the middle of the night. Which, really, is only the cherry on top of so many other things.

He’s trying to come up with something to say that would at least partially encompass what’s going on inside—Eliot’s gotten better with it over the years, but it still isn’t exactly _easy_ —but he comes up blank. Q is still twirling with him to the song, at nearly three am, in their messy kitchen, on his birthday, and Eliot’s heart has never felt fuller.

Slowly, Eliot tips his head down and drops a kiss on Q’s forehead, moves, then, to kiss his temple, his cheek, the tip of his nose, the space between his eyebrows, the cut of jaw, the corner of his mouth. When he draws back an inch, Q’s eyes are closed, face angled up, and he looks happy, blissful, and Eliot aches in all the good ways with the knowledge that he can make him feel like that. 

So when he leans back in to kiss Q for real, he knows he’s another step closer to make his wish come true. With every day, Eliot is a little less afraid of his own happiness, a little less afraid of the intensity of his feelings, and little more confident that he can make what he has with Q work, for the span of another lifetime.

The blowjobs help, too, of course.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on either [tumblr](coldwaughtered.tumblr.com) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/proofsofconcept) if you want to.


End file.
